Where Is There? Part 2

A friend sent me this account by an anonymous blind fellow. This prompted me to go digging around for a poem I wrote many years ago on the subject. It tries to explore that elusive land, not so far away as Neverland, yet equally as mysterious.

Over There.

At last we can know the location of "Over There."

As my guide dog and I stood in line at the checkout counter of the River City Market, I asked the cashier what I thought was a simple question, "Where are the napkins please?" Her response was hurried but sincere, "Over There."

The next day I was at a new bus stop and I managed to catch the attention of a passer-by. "Please sir, can you tell me where I might catch bus 63?" A kind voice offered a pleasant response before disappearing into the cacophony of the early afternoon. "You can catch it Over There," he said.

So many things reside Over There: napkins, bus stops, pencils, pens, clothing racks, department stores and even my shoes! A never-ending supply of important and indispensable items and locales all reside in this place, which is shrouded in mystery and intrigue. I stand in perplexed silence after learning that something or someone is “Over There.” It is a place I have never been to and have no hope of finding on my own.

My guide dog is quite skilled in finding chairs, stairs, counters, curbs, elevators, escalators, helping me cross streets, and can even find me the pepperoni display at Food Town. However, when I tell him to find Over There, his little bottom hits the floor and a small whimper tells me that he is as confused as I am.

We will not be going Over There today.

Over There has caused me a bit of vexation, a lot of confusion and, on occasion, made my heart race. I have discovered that Over There can be a dangerous place.

One day while crossing a street, I heard a driver's irritated voice shout out a warning of a truck bearing down on me from Over There. My guide dog artfully dodged the oncoming vehicle and pulled me to safety at the curb. Our hearts were both racing as we took a few moments to compose ourselves. Close encounters with Over There can be frightening experiences.

Although many blind people have wondered as to the exact whereabouts of Over There, few have dared to venture forth in an actual exploration of the ghostly place.

Recently I entered a drugstore, and after my guide dog found the counter, I asked the clerk where I might find the aspirin. With a cheery smile in her voice, she informed me that the aspirin was located (all together now!), "Over There."

With a bold sigh, I decided that I would finally take the extra step that would unravel the mystery which had vexed my compatriots since the beginning of time. Taking a deep breath, and attempting to look nonchalant, I smiled at the clerk and asked, "Where exactly is Over There?"

I felt her concerned look. The silence grew palpable as she mulled over the possibility of allowing a blind person access to the forbidden land. The die was cast. She had no choice. She would have to tell me how to find it.

I had won! Exhilaration swept through me as I waited in breathless anticipation. A victorious smile crept to my lips, my hand tightened on the handle of my guide dog's harness. We were at the ready – we would soon be going Over There!

The clerk's voice reeked with resignation as she began to speak. She said (drum roll please): "It’s that way."

And now for my poem.

Where Is There?

Without eyes, entered a room,
a tired man, his head was strewn
with worldly words, often unsaid,
he asked where he might rest his head.

A clerk then pointed, “over there.”
“Where is there?” the blind man’s query.
“Right there, it's there, it's over there.”
The familiar strain made the old man weary.

“I cannot see, please show me where.”
The clerk then said much louder,
“I'm sorry friend, please sit right here.”
From there to here he’d flounder.

The clerk’s voice now moved a wall,
“Right here! It's here!” insisted.
The blind man said, “And by the way,
my ears need not be twisted.”

And so explained, the blind old man,
his journeys' end a wooden chair,
that “Over there, has no meaning.”
“Put it where?” the clerk was screaming.
“Where the moon don't shine,” he shared.

by Steve Gladstone, blind dude

Kinky Boots

Photo credit:  Aida Zuniga I’ve groused aplenty about how the world doesn’t have blind folks at the top of its A-List, so now it’s time to give credit where credits due.

More and more devices and services are coming online that enrich the lives and experiences of blind folks and those with low vision. Technology is moving well beyond computer screen readers and talking thermometers, especially in the world of entertainment.

Several years ago, the first round of “video described” movies made it possible for blind folks to know what was going on between the dialogue. The original Star Trek films and Pretty Woman were among the first few titles where narration, carefully synchronized with the actors' words and motions, was added to the soundtrack after the film was shot. This made blind movie fans aware of the nonverbal action on the screen. I recall a specific narrative in Pretty Woman when Richard Gere is first driving with Julia Roberts in his rented Lotus: “She reaches over and feels his crotch.”

There are now thousands of films and TV “described” shows available as MP3 downloads. (All you really need is an MP3 player and the sweetened audio track of the film unless, of course, you are watching the video with your sighted girlfriend.)

Methinks in a real sort of way, the added narration is a show unto itself. One can only imagine the colorful narrative to the Game of Thrones. Yup, it’s all there.

Even my local movie theater complex offers video description for those first run films that are released with the pre-recorded narration, though the technology can be a bit finicky and doesn’t always work.

Comcast now has its X1 Entertainment Operating System which speaks aloud the channel, current program, and reads the TV guide and controls for programming your DVR. For those TV shows offering video description, many from PBS, blind and low vision users get increased access to the action on present-day TV.

And now, like Santa, Broadway with audio description has come to town.

On any given Sunday matinee, Florida Grand Opera, the Miami City Ballet and many of the musical roadshows presented at the Arsht Center in Miami are audio described with a live narrator. Unlike recorded films and TV, describing live shows has some synchronization challenges since the pace of the action may vary from performance to performance. It requires the narration to be matched to the action in real time by a breathing person via a FM transmitter to a receiver headset worn by the patron.

I just attended the national tour of Kinky Boots, a Broadway musical based on the film of the same name, The inspiration for which came from a true story about a young man (Charlie Price) who inherits his family’s shoe factory and, in order to save the business from bankruptcy, converts it from making fine men’s footwear to producing red thigh high boots for drag queens and fashionistas.

So, how did I know the boots were red? Read on, Macduff.

First off, a pre-show backstage ‘touch tour’ of some of the props and set pieces offered up the first sense of dimension for the blind experience. Grabbing hold of a pair of kinky boots was, well, kinky.

Steve smiling with kinky boot

When there’s dialogue, you have the sense of what’s happening, but when there is silence between the actors, or the actors are singing or dancing, the action is totally lost on blind folks.

As a pumped up Charlie sang about the steps he needed to take to make the prototype boot to serve his underserved niche market, he pulled a piece of leather out of a bucket and began to fashion the first boot; there was a sewing station and a production area on stage around him. I knew all this because of the narration I heard through my earpiece as he sang. The driving tune suddenly became three-dimensional with the descriptive imagery planted squarely in my mind.

After a few false starts and some helpful design tips from the lead gender bender, Lola, singing “The Sex is in the Heel,” the factory workers later raised the roof as the first pair of "kinky boots" was finally completed. The sexy lyrics were even sexier knowing that one of Lola’s backup drag dancers, one of the “angels,” did a full split in heels and another did a backflip; the excitement was more exciting knowing that dancers shimmied and swiveled in “halter tops, short shorts and work boots” as the first completed boot was revealed. Everybody (me included) shouted “yeah, yeah!”

The spoken cues indicated more depth of character when factory worker Lauren “moved in close to Charlie’s face and was reluctant to remove her hand from his thigh” as she sang of her history of choosing the wrong guys, even while falling in love with Charlie. Descriptions of the subtle gestures and facial expressions between Charlie and Lola added an emotional dynamic as they discovered their similarly complex feelings toward their fathers. Knowing that Lola exited the nursing home “straight and proud” in her white dress, after singing to her estranged wheelchair-bound dying father to hold her in his heart, added the otherwise missing element of both love and defiance.

The graphic description of Lola’s provocative moves while proving that she was closer to a woman's ideal man than was Don, the foreman and her heavy-set macho antagonist, enhanced her song and dance with some tasty spice. After challenging her to a boxing match, the ‘slow-mo’ blows that Lola landed on Don in the boxing ring was the only way I knew who was winning the fight. Without the verbal cues before Lola and the angels arrived to save the day, I would never have known that Charlie stumbled more than a few times on the runway while modeling his boots during the Milan industry show.

While attending a play or musical, it’s often a big mystery to me when scenes change. When the scene shifted from the shoe factory to London to a pub to a boxing ring to the runway in Milan, I was knocked out with a greater sense on what the heck was happening on stage!

Steve with astonished kinky dancer with boot in the air

Without the narration, how else would I have known that the hefty Don, now Lola’s ally, showed up on the runway in Milan wearing a feminine blue outfit and boots?

Oh yeah, also while in Milan, one of the angels who saves the day was “dressed in a British flag, wearing 2 and ½ feet thigh high red kinky boots.”

That’s how I knew they were red.

Where is There?

Today there are only about 39 million people in the world who are completely blind, which is about ½ of 1% of the world’s total population. We are not talking about visually impaired people who use corrective lenses or cock their heads this way or that to pull something into view; we are talking gold standard blind – people unable to see zip… nada, nothing.

Since 99.5% of the world’s population can see, most people never come face-to-face with a completely blind individual and consequently get no practice interacting with totally blind folks.

I used to be amazed at how inept or awkward people were around me after I lost all my sight. It’s like I had an exotic skin disease when people went to guide me. Typically they’d grab my hand or wrist and proceed to drag me along as if I was a large stuffed animal.

When I ask where the pitcher of lemonade is or where I should sit while waiting for the doctor, I’m frequently told, “Over there.” Where is there, exactly? The similar phrase, “Sit over here,” isn’t much help either. “Go that way” also isn’t a useful direction for a sightless person.

The key problem for blind people (besides not being able to see) is that most of the world isn’t blind.

The disadvantages of being sightless in a sighted world are many, most likely due to the fact that people who invent things are not blind and don’t think about building products and providing services with the blind in mind.

Even buttons to press or knobs to turn that can be helpful to sightless users are disappearing from appliances and credit card swipers. My local supermarket just replaced their keypad pay stations with touchscreens, making it impossible for me to complete the checkout process myself. Ovens, microwaves, thermostats, countless other appliances, even vending machine operational buttons and knobs have slowly been replaced with digital displays, making most of them inaccessible for sightless people. (Gotta give a shout out to Apple Inc., the exception here, for designing their goods for blind users with lots of accessibility built into their products.)

This refrigerator has a lot of options...for a sighted person.

When I’m listening to the TV and hear, “Just call the number at the bottom of your screen for your 30 day supply and we’ll pay the shipping,” or the message says, “Just call 1-800-GOFEDEX,” you know these knuckleheads aren’t thinking of their blind customers.

Ironically, some banks do provide Braille instructions on their ATMs, but in the drive-through? Really? So, they want the operator of the vehicle to throw it into reverse and back up into the drive-through lane so that their blind passenger can reach out and touch the nicely brailed panel of instructions? Or maybe the bank execs intend this accommodation for the blind folks who are out and about on their roller blades with their guide dogs.

Braille in the drive-thru? Hmm.

Since most people don’t have a family member or a friend who is a real-deal blind person, they get no practice with what sightless individuals consider to be the no-brainer rules of engagement: don’t grab and drag, don’t say “over there,” announce all the digits of the phone number, etc.

The other day I went to the podiatrist with a pain in my big left toe. When the receptionist (who learned I was blind when I signed in) called my name, my friend led me to the door leading to the examination rooms. I was standing there quietly in the doorway when the receptionist told me to go down the hall and enter the second door on the left. I smugly replied, “Which way?” She said, “Over there.” (cricket…cricket…) I grinned wryly and she said, “Oh, walk down that way about 20 feet (Ha! I’ll bet she was pointing too!) and take a left into the second door.” My friend realized what was happening (or not happening), offered me his elbow and led me to the examining room.

I later realized my own prejudice – I assumed medical professionals would know better. Then again, most, maybe all, of their patients aren’t blind. No practice dealing with blind folks, like the rest of the world.

I made my follow-up appointment and the receptionist announced to my friend that I needed to return in 2 weeks. Did she think I wasn’t going to tell him? Really? This is similar to the server in a restaurant who will ask my girlfriend if I would prefer the broccoli or string beans with my chicken and rice. She points to me and says, “Ask him. He’ll know.”

Curiously, when I’m speaking on the phone with somebody I’ve never met and my blindness comes up during the natural course of the conversation, they often say, “You don’t sound blind.”

I’m still not sure what sounding blind is supposed to sound like.

Steve Gladstone

The Blind Dude

Broken Glass

photo by George Schiavone

I just finished stuffing some tuna fish into a green pepper, when I bumped my dish strainer and a glass plate came crashing down on the tile floor in my kitchen. I could hear it shatter into a zillion pieces. “Don’t panic, don’t move,” I thought, “and eat your lunch.”

I did and it was tasty. The problem was that the thousand shards of glass were still there after I finished eating.

I employ magical thinking at every opportunity, and when that doesn’t work, I turn to wishful thinking. I believe these sorts of sophisticated thought strategies are practiced by most everyone. A fine example of this is the decision we all make everyday whether or not to wash the dishes right after eating, or wait till tomorrow. If we wait till morning, the dish-fairy might just get them done for us.

Usually both the magical and wishful tactics come up short in solving real problems, and then I find myself resorting to reality, which is not as flexible as the magical approach. So, the myriad slivers of glass didn’t all by themselves suddenly wind up in the garbage can, migrate to a neat little pile to be sucked up easily into a vacuum hose, nor did they find their way back together again into a useful saucer.

What to do. Blind and barefoot in a kitchen with broken glass frosting your floor is a difficult situation.

Rule 1: Obtain a layer of protection. Rule 2: Move slowly. Rule 3: First, finish your lunch.

Fortunately, within arm’s reach were some paper towels. I grabbed several, crouched low and slowly ran the paper towels along the floor, moving the sharp little slivers aside and creating safe passage out of the kitchen. All 3 of my “call-me-anytime-if-you-need-any-help” neighbors were unavailable. I put up a blockade at the entrance of the kitchen so my guide dog Billy wouldn’t wander in. Six hours later, a friend swept and vacuumed my kitchen floor. I suppose she was a fairy of sorts.

So, when you’re blind and live alone and your dog throws-up, what do you do? Yep, magical thinking aside, obtain a layer of protection and move slowly (with some Lysol spray in tow). But first, finish your lunch.

It's Good to be King

All Photographs by Daniel Bock

I’m again playing King Silvio in The Love of Three Oranges, a curious little play that is based on an old Italian Commedia scenario by Carlo Gozzi. (Commedia dell'arte was a popular form of theatre in 16-18th Century Europe, performed on outdoor stages and based on comic sketches and stock characters – a sort of old world Saturday Night Live.) Three Oranges was turned into an opera by Prokofiev, which premiered in Chicago in 1921. And now the play has migrated to Miami.

When I was first offered to do this show several years ago, director Stephanie asked me if I would like to play the King as blind. Being proud to pretend to play sighted characters, my knee-jerk reaction was to play him as written (old but sighted). Then I got to thinking about this opportunity. And why not? I’m a blind guy.

This begs the old conflict I’ve had for most of my acting life. Since the vast majority of the characters written into plays, movies and TV are not disabled, my mind-set has always been to audition ‘sighted.’ Actually, when I first started going blind, I used to try and hide the fact that I could barely see. It only occurred to me later in my career that many nondescript characters could easily be in a wheelchair, deaf or blind – provided of course that the director had the imagination to picture it. When I auditioned for the role of Teckie, a forensic analyst, in the movie The Specialist, the director liked the idea of turning the character into a blind audio wonk. I was hired and played alongside James Woods. My first guide dog, Recon, was also framed in the scene.

Of course, one has to land the role initially…you’ve gotta be an actor first and then a blind guy somewhere around number 6 or 7 down the list.

I was recently contacted by a deaf actor who was discouraged with the business and asked me about obstacles that I had encountered as a disabled performer. I told him that the biggest obstacle I had faced was people. Casting folks will prejudge you, or will wonder “why the agent sent a deaf guy,” or just simply lack the ability to imagine the extra layer of character that a disabled actor might bring to the role. However, I suggested that he had the benefit of low expectation. By nature, when disability walks (or rolls) through the casting door, expectations of those in the room will naturally drop. Getting in the door can be tricky, but once you do and show them something special, the element of surprise kicks in and they get interested real fast. The message: be an actor first. Study and hone your talent so that you're ready to kick butt when that audition comes up. I also reminded him that all actors, disabled or non-disabled, experience rejection on a routine basis. That’s the biz. Besides, rejection is one step closer to a gig.

So now, as an older actor, I’m happy to ease into a blind character role.

I’m the blind elderly monarch of Lugubria and my only son and heir to the throne, Prince Tartaglia, is dying of terminal hypochondria. If he is not cured, my crown will pass to my evil niece, Clarice. A pair of mystical doctors suggest a cure: “Make the Prince laugh soon.” My servant and adviser, Pantalone, helps me with a plan to hire the funniest man in the kingdom, Truffaldino, to make the Prince laugh. Pantalone leads me back and forth as we work out the details, and with a “5-6-7-8,” we dance off singing, “The Prince is going to live forever, forever, forever, forever more!”

Truffaldino is successful in making Tartaglia laugh, but the bad witch, Fata Morgana, creates another obstacle. She puts a curse on Tartaglia which causes him to search across the world for three Oranges, which are seemingly impossible to gather up. It turns out that one of the Oranges is actually a Princess, Ninetta, who was previously turned into an Orange by that pesky Fata Morgana. I bring Smeraldina, Fata’s servant, and Clarice to trial, both implicated in attempting to prevent the Prince from ascending to the throne. In order to preside over the formalities, I must move alone from up stage right to a table down stage center. To avoid taking a nasty spill onto the lady in the first row, Princess Ninetta takes my hand and points it at the corner of the table as she explains to me her plight and her desire to marry the Prince. When she moves away from me, I orient myself to my hand and make the dramatic cross down to the table. After exposing the bad guys, I announce that it’s time to celebrate a Royal wedding and everybody dances a wild tarantella. I step with the cast in a line for the first part of the dance. Then Clarice turns and aims me at my Royal footstool and I skip down to it and continue stepping lively.

Blind or not, it’s good to be King.

My Minnie Vacation

Thank you Thespis! I closed Three Sisters after 30 performances and was hired straight away to play King Silvio in another fantastical iteration of The Love of Three Oranges, an updated 18th Century Italian fairy tale. The number “3” has been good to me lately. A little R&R was in order before beginning rehearsals for Oranges, so it was off to Disney.

Even worse than the broken desk chair, the broken refrigerator, and the broken shower door in my hotel room, was the one bar of soap on the little glass shelf along with the hand cream, shampoo and conditioner. (I’m reminded of the time when I washed my hair with hand cream!) Of course I forgot to ask for another bar of soap and the next morning I had to take the little piece of sink soap into the shower. Then later when I needed to wash the toothpaste off my hands, I had to hop back into the shower to retrieve it. Anyway, I got everything fixed and the maid loaded me up with extra bars of soap – compensation for my troubles. The good news is now I won’t have to buy any soap for my bathroom at home for about 6 months.

First off was Fantasyland. Part of the fantasy is not standing in line. However, I may have to drop that from my “Advantages of Being Blind” list. During this round of Disney, the traditional bump to the front of the line was met by the ADA police. I was informed that: “This ride is ADA compliant.” This was code for “all you disabled customers now have the same privilege to stand in line for 95 minutes to ride for five just like the rest of the schmoes.” Of course the stop-starting when you can’t see, the more than 27 toes you step on during that winding line maneuver, notwithstanding the burden for your companion who must diligently watch you and coach you to start and stop 197 times as you inch forward, isn’t considered an ‘undue hardship’ on the blind dude. It wouldn’t be quite so bad if most of the big round eared Crime Squad didn’t have a seemingly gleeful tone in their voice when delivering the news to join the rest of the sheep in line. It’s always a bit of a shocker when Disney employees behave like the normal rest of the world. Still I love the Mouse.

After visiting EPCOT and connecting with Figment, eating several chocolate covered frozen bananas, and riding through the Maelstrom and purchasing a new troll to add to my excellent collection of supernatural beings, I was off to Hollywood Studios. While at Guest Services there, I was offered a descriptive audio device which automagically described some of the action inside the rides. For example, during Pirates of the Caribbean, instead of just hearing a clunk on a table, a descriptive character voice told me that “Jack Sparrow raises his mug of rum, drinks it, and puts it down on the table.” Nice! Years ago I only heard a machine gun rattle, roaring propellers and felt the heat from a sudden burst of a fireball during the finale of the Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular. This time through my little device with headphones, I learned that “Indiana Jones was trying to rescue his partner Marion, who was shooting at the bad guys with a machine gun from the cockpit of a plane that was spinning out of control, while flames were racing toward the plane from an ignited gasoline tanker which exploded just as Jones and Marion leap to safety.” Über-cool.

Now we just have to train all the employees at The World to offer these handy-dandy devices. No one offered me the audio description machines at The Magic Kingdom nor at EPCOT. (Perhaps the very thorough ADA Crime Squad trainers need to be recruited to train the customer service reps at all the parks.) These nifty headsets will be on my list for Santa next go-round.

Now off to another magical land – Lugubria – and the search for three oranges.

Rehearsal and Opening

Our director Stephanie “blocks” the show, positioning the players to fit the action of the dialogue. In my case with “Three Sisters,” I’m playing Ferapont, an 80 year old messenger who is hard of hearing (according to the script) and whom we made visually impaired to boot. So in my case, my blocking was for 2 characters – me and the maid, the faithful Ana, who leads me wherever I need to go.

Usually I play sighted characters, keying off set pieces, changes in flooring, other actors, to get my bearings, but when I have the opportunity to play a blind character, I’ll have a timely cane or a sighted guide. (I’ve never used my guide dog on stage, though once I forgot to tie him down backstage and while dancing in the streets of Paris in “Hunchback of Notre Dame” came the familiar jingle of a dog collar and suddenly, there was my guide, bouncing in the streets of Paris with the ensemble. The audience loved it. After the show, the director said, “Let’s keep it in!”

Stephanie, an attractive brunette with piercing eyes behind rectangular glasses, sees and conveys a clear image of the “where, when and why” of each action for each player, choreographer Octi often assisting on the “how to get there.” With 16 actors, set pieces, flower arrangements, books, a smashing clock, toys, bottles, glasses, and dishes, which all move, there is a lot of constant traffic during the 4 acts of this show, both on and off stage. Everything is blocked precisely by Stephanie so the show runs like a well-oiled machine with no interruption in the action, and with no actors bumping into each other or the set. For this special show, the audience is also on stage on a movable riser which is repositioned 3 times during the play for different views in and around the Prozorov house.

The Candy Set

In order to get a sense of the surroundings on stage, Ana grabs some of my leftover Halloween candy and creates a model set, a colorful array of Jolly Ranchers, Twizzlers, and Sweet Tarts. She puts my hands on it so I can feel the set pieces, giving me a real sense of the space. My cell phone plays the part of the audience riser.

Miami Shores isn’t Flat

I have to remember that the 3 different staircases in the theatre I use during the show all have a different number of steps leading up and down from the stage – stage left has five, stage right has four, and the steps at the back of the house have six. As I go up and down these suckers, sometimes quickly, I gotta concentrate. I’m happy to report so far so good.

Costumes

The costumes, designed by multi-tasking Fernando (who is also the set and lighting designer), are quite elegant, the ladies in corsets, beautiful floor length dresses, boots with heels, the men bedecked in military garb, the maids in formal servant dress, and that messenger for the chairman (yours truly) looking a bit disheveled.

Lights and Sound

Once the entire play is blocked, we start back at the top and do a “cue-to-cue” where each action starts and stops so the lights and sound effects can be added to the action on stage. With doorbells ringing, a violin playing offstage, fire truck bells sounding, birds chirping, barking dogs and over 170 different light cues, this process alone takes 2 weeks to conclude.

All Hands on Deck

Once the show is blocked, lit and sound-synched, it’s time to work the transitions from act to act. The 5 Stage hands, including the lovely Tammy who does double duty as a maid on stage, strike and add the massive amount of set pieces and props during the transitions between the acts,and pivot the 49 members of the audience on the movable riser, smoothly and efficiently.

Downtime

You become a family when you work on a show. You nap backstage when you’re not working, eat together at the local bistro, and play with Billy the Dog whenever possible.

Opening

Once we open, Stephanie turns the show over to the stage manager Naomi, and the assistant stage manager Amanda, who “call” the show from top to bottom, making sure that the actors are in place and the almost 300 cues for lights, sound,set changes and actors goes off without a hitch.

It’s show time!

The Airport

The Airport

The airport for blind folks presents a unique environment of inconsistencies and some people who take themselves way too seriously. The Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport offers some fine examples.

Seeing Eye Dogs

The curb-side sign outside the FLL Airport reads: “No Pets Allowed Except Seeing Eye Dogs.” This sign begs some clarification of terms. All dogs trained to assist blind folks are not “Seeing Eye” dogs, like all tissue is not “Kleenex” and all soda is not “Coke.” The correct generic is “Guide Dog.” So when people ask me if my dog Billy is a seeing eye dog, I get cranky and resort to education. To be fair, New Jersey based The Seeing Eye was the first school in America (1929) to train dogs to help blind people navigate the obstacles they face every day while moving around their neighborhoods. There are now a dozen or so schools producing guide dogs, Billy being Florida-trained. This airport sign demonstrates the depth of unawareness for the right term even in the chain of command at an international level. The situation was about to be remedied when the check in guy asked me if I got my dog in Jersey. I offered to buy him a Coke.

Maintaining Visual Contact

I cannot maintain visual contact with my personal belongings. In the past 6 weeks I’ve been to New York, L. A. and Nicaragua. While waiting for my flights, I heard the recurring announcement to “please maintain visual contact with your personal belongings at all times.” I considered turning Billy to face and stare at my carry on suitcase but that cliché was even too much for me.

The Shoe-Nazi

I always get my ticket at curb side and take an escort to the gate. It’s clean and efficient with the only obstacle being that one in ten shoe-Nazi who insists on me removing my shoes. Just to be clear, since they always pat me down anyway, why take them off? They can swipe my footwear with a chemical and analyze it with their goggles and science kit. On my latest trip to L. A., I got that thug that behaved like Cerberus at the gates of Hades, growling at me to take off my shoes. After removing them and walking through the scanning arch, he said, “You can’t see without your dog, right?” I said, “I can’t even see with him.” Whoosh—flutter! I could hear his ears flapping as the comment zoomed past his head. He patted me down like the nefarious guy I was and I was off down the corridor once again.

The Dictator-In-Waiting

When I was sighted half my life ago, we always got our tickets at the front desk. Now checking in at curb-side as a blind dude, I missed the part when the technology changed to the friendly kiosk where you print your own ticket. On our way to New York for my son’s college graduation a couple of weeks ago, my daughter grabbed my credit card and printed our tickets to LaGuardia. Cool. When we arrived at the gate, the attendant asked for Billy’s papers. Papers? What papers? He indicated that I needed to produce “proof that he was a seeing eye dog” (snicker snicker) along with a history of his vaccinations and current blood line. The dictator-in-waiting also informed me that Billy should be wearing his certified vest. I asked dictator-in-waiting why he wasn’t wearing his certified jacket. “What jacket?” he asked. “The white straight one,” I mumbled. Whoosh—flutter! I explained that I travel a lot and have never been asked for my dog’s complete record at any airport. He said that I could not board the aircraft without it and I dropped the guy to the mat in a full nelson in my imagination. Then he noticed the service animal box wasn’t marked on my ticket during the kiosk check-in maneuver. I figured out the curb-side folks must always have check marked that box for me. My daughter was upset that I took the gate guy to task.  I think she thought he was cute.

A Cautionary Tale

When you’re blind, be careful when the guy sitting next to you on the airplane is being rude, ignoring your questions or not returning the obligatory ‘thank you’ to your ‘god bless you’ when he sneezes. Though no one needs to be tolerant of the insolent, he may be wearing headphones.

Steve Actor, Music Critic, Blogger

Steve's reviews for MiamiArtzine can also be found in the "News" tab of Insight's website.  Many thanks to Steve and Roger Martin for permission to post them, here.